At a time when the US celebrates its liberty, please find some time to watch heroic Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi delivering her first BBC lecture on the nature of freedom.

She is an elected leader, never allowed to govern by the military thugs who run Burma. She has spent years being mistreated in jail, and under house arrest, She has recently been freed and recorded this lecture series in secret. It is likely to get her more jail time.

And she likes the Grateful Dead....Standing on the Moon is her favourite.

there should be a rush to judgement on the maid or a presumption of guilt. After seeing the documentary "The Lost Children of Nepal " on CNN in which it is shown that about 30,000 young women are smuggled each year out of the country into a life of prostitution in Mumbai and Delhi (and most ending up with AIDS) without their knowledge. By young I means as young as 10 years old. They are given hormones to make their bodies develop prematurely.

These women come from a dirt poor country (avg. wage $200 per year) and the ones who are smart enough to know what is happening to them are spending their earnings on gold to smuggle back to their own country and give to their families. Then they die of AIDS within 10 years.

It is heart-wrenching and I certainly agree that women need more, not less, rights when it comes to being rape victims. If you want to contribute to a huge home for former prostitutes with AIDS in Nepal founded and supported by Demi Moore, Google Maiti Nepal if you wish to learn more and make a contribution.

No matter what the outcome or facts really are, no matter how you look at it, this woman is a victim. And it could be that this case sets women accusing prominant or wealthy people of sexual assault back into the dark ages. That worries me.
**********************************
I am not young enough to know everything.
Oscar Wilde

In France DSK would have had a right to anonymity as an accused rapist. In the UK the new coalition government promised to introduce a right of anonymity for accused rapists but this has now been quietly dropped from their agenda.

I believe proves my point. In the US, there is supposed to be a presumption of innocence until guilt is proven. Everyone knows this, but few actually walk the walk, including the practitioners in the system. There should be no rush to judgment, either way, in any issue of contention whether criminal or civil until all the facts pertinent to the matter can be exposed and thoroughly examined by dispassionate, disinterested third parties. That's the way it's supposed to be. Too bad it doesn't actually work that way. Maybe if more people starting thinking that they had a vested interest in the system working, it just might.

Conversation is always more interesting than recitation, so speak your mind and not someone else's.

...that even before TL's post I laid the blame squarely at Sarkozy's door and believe he is still laughing about destroying the character of his opponent for the Presidency of France, or leadership of the IMF, whichever. It was not a rush to judgement, it was an obvious call. CB: The maid's story is not just subject to dissection due to the fact that she was a rape victim. There were unusual transfers of money into her bank account that cannot be explained.

And GD? The scary thing is you ARE presumed guilty in the US upon being arrested, especially if it goes through a grand jury indictment. Even without which, 90% get faced with a plea bargain and a sword hanging over their head with a prosecutor saying: "Take the deal. If you make us go through the expense of a jury trial you'll get the full sentence without any chance of parole.

I have seen this justice system destroy the life of a friend who stole a pack of cigarettes and then held the clerk at bay with a spork. He got ten years and served out every day in a prison in NC. He was gang-raped and developed Hep C. and Crohn's disease. Consider yourself lucky you are short.

A lot of what I just said about the American justice system is the reason that certain of the Grateful Dead family rolled and gave up other deadheads, who then gave up other deadheads for the distribution of party favors.

~ The sheriff's on my trail
And if he catches up with me
I'll spend my life in jail ~

I've always found it strange that a victim of a "crime" can't be named prior to the trial for legal reasons, but the accused can. I know this is to protect the victim, but what happens when the accusations turn out to be false and someone's life is ripped apart together with the lives of their families, surely this cannot be right.
Whether we agree or not these peoples lives are often destroyed for good, with the old "well there must have been something to it" mantra thrown up, and the stigma of the accusation being with them forever.
I do not know if there was a conspiracy in the Strauss Khan case or not, I don't know if the 'victim' was paid off or not, but I do know both scenarios have been played out before many times.

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